


And if it changes you, come home

by Ceramic_Wings



Category: LinkedUniverse - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Wind (Linked Universe) Angst, Wind (Linked Universe) Has a Bad Time, Wind (Linked Universe)-centric, like everything i write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29625468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceramic_Wings/pseuds/Ceramic_Wings
Summary: Because all I can do is write sad Wind and cry, here's another sad Wind story, this one exploring how Wind, who was presumably like twelve years old when he went to go rescue his sister from a big bird, is definitely traumatized by all his adventuresThree cheers for becoming emotionally unstable and anxious at a horrifyingly young age
Relationships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe), Time & Wind (Linked Universe)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	And if it changes you, come home

He comes home from his first quest- _first? second, third?_ \- a little different. Jumpier, maybe, but somehow more confident, more certain of the sword in his hand, the small one he'd once wielded against those monsters in the forest at the top of Outset.

He returns to his old way of life on the island, herds pigs and makes small talk and only sometimes reaches for a sword no longer at his back when someone enters the room suddenly.

He wakes up on the shores of a strange and unknown island, taken in by a fairy's grandfather. He looks for his friend Tetra, shakes alone at night and prays that she yet lives. He wades again and again through a temple that drains the very life from his body, more than once he reaches that edge and only just manages to pull back in time.

He wakes up on the deck of Tetra's ship, wakes up from his _fourthfifthsixth_ quest and Tetra says he was asleep for a good ten minutes or so, that he'd been kicking in his slumber. He wills tears away from his eyes and says "that's odd" and cries alone in his cabin, doesn't sleep for days after that because _he can't do it again_.

When the black rift opens at the end of the dock on Outset island, he is swallowed by dread. No more. Please, no more- and then the heroes approach his sister, his sweet sister, the most important thing in his whole world, and he's running before he can stop himself, throwing himself between them like it will accomplish anything.

The strangers look confused more than anything, and don't seem to understand why he's holding his arms out to shield Aryll from them. They tell him they're looking for somebody named Link.

Fear, cold like northern seawater, pervades his body. He smiles hollowly and says "that's me" and they take him, they take him from his home and his sister and his grandmother, they take him and they pretend he has a choice but he knows better.

He has not lived this long as a fool.

This will not break him, not now, not after so much has gone wrong and he has inexplicably survived. The scars on his arms and legs say otherwise, the burns and scrapes and chunks and bites taken out of his back say otherwise- the look in the old man's eyes when he sees them says so much otherwise. 

He had not seen the Old Man cry before that day. But he is gathered into the hero's arms, and cradled like the child he has not been in years, and the old man cries then. That night he is encircled by brothers, embraced into their caste, and they understand now- he is changed, was changed even before they knew him. They had come expecting an adult, they'd found a child. They'd expected that child to be innocent and carefree, they'd found him to be troubled and troubling. But still, they support him. He is overcome with weary gratitude.

If he can give them nothing else, he will give them his companionship, his sword and his shield. His sail, too, for he would take them to the ends of the Earth if they so desired. He loves his brothers, and they love him as well- in all his world-worn, restless ways. 


End file.
